


The Puppet Master

by jusrecht



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyoko will do anything for her daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Puppet Master

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this prompt: _behind the scenes; everyday uses for powers/weapons_

“He is just a child.”

Kyoko made no answer. Her gaze remained on the window and the bright, sun-soaked garden below, where Mariko stood in competition with many spring flowers and still emerged victorious in her pink dress and gold ribbons. The light sound of her giggles reached Kyoko’s ears, and the thin line of her mouth momentarily softened into a smile.

“Aren’t we blessed?”

Tsuna moved to stand next to her, his fingers fitting the spaces between hers perfectly. “Very much,” he whispered, for a moment completely happy and content. Kyoko smiled at his faint reflection in the windowpane.

“She wants a pumpkin carriage for her fourth birthday.”

His laughter flowed free and light—such a beautiful sound it made her heart ache. “I don’t know, maybe we can ask Reborn to play the fairy godmother.”

“He’ll say yes in a heartbeat; you know how much he dotes on her. But then she’ll start calling him ‘Auntie Reborn’ and we’re all doomed.”

He was grinning now. “If there is anyone who can get away with it, then it’s Mariko.”

Kyoko would have continued in this vein—would have kept this moment forever—but her daughter’s trilling laugh cut her heart open and unleash one of the monsters lurking within. Only one, but it was enough to threaten, the vast spread of its wings blocking the sunlight. She took a deep breath and began.

“One thing that worries me most about your job is that you can so easily… disappear from our lives.”

Tsuna suddenly stiffened, but he made no reply. Kyoko fixed her gaze at Mariko’s dark hair, crowned with white flowers and gold ribbons. “Of course I don’t wish that,” she continued, gently squeezing his hand, “but supposing that you do, someday, then what kind of life do you want us to lead?”

“One that will make you both happy,” Tsuna’s answer was firm, ready.

“But you see, Tsu-kun,” she said quietly, the using of his pet name subtle but deliberate, “that is not possible.”

Tsuna’s breath caught. The sound tore at her heart, but Kyoko bore the pain without a sound; it was but a shadow of what he must be feeling, with so much guilt screaming behind his silence. It would forever haunt him, that his future self had chosen her and dressed her in this role.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked at last, his voice weighed with so much weariness.

“You cannot always ask that.” Kyoko allowed a trace of sharpness in her tone. “That isn’t how a marriage works. What about what do you want to do? What will make _you_ happy?”

Tsuna shook his head. “What I want is impossible.”

She smiled sadly and touched his cheek; he looked at her then, with wide, sorrowful eyes. “You are too kind,” she told him gently. “That is your best quality and your worst weakness. You wish for everything to be nice and perfect.”

“But it cannot be,” he murmured plaintively.

“No,” Kyoko replied, her voice softly decisive, “it cannot.”

  
–

  
It was three days later that Kyoko heard the news. I-Pin was careful enough to mention only the bare facts: a car accident, the passengers all killed, including the last surviving son of an enemy Family Vongola had just ruined, a boy of not yet ten years old. (But he would have grown up and vendetta ran thick in this world she had come to despise and no, she could not have that noose around her neck.)

Sawada Kyoko would protect her flesh and blood, even if it meant she would have to stain her hand—or her husband’s hand—with the blood of a child.

  
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_End_   
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